


Haunt Yourself

by oisiflaneur



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Gen, Other, Series Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 22:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6347728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oisiflaneur/pseuds/oisiflaneur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lifting his glasses to scrub at his eyes, he looks down and feels like his heart is about to stop ( but it won’t, of course it won’t, he’s not even nearly ninety yet, he <i>still has time</i> ). Scrawled in the margins of his notes, the ink still fresh and smudged by his own hand, is a message that he didn’t write.</p><div class="center">
  <p>UNTIL THE END OF TIME SIXER<br/>△</p>
</div>He rips the page out, discarding his research on a bear with half a dozen heads, and stuffs it into his pocket.<p>“Time to make some coffee,” he mumbles to himself, striding towards the kitchen. Maybe he’ll even stop by the Dusk 2 Dawn, pick up some energy drinks. Anything to keep him awake and aware, at this point.</p><p>After all, he has work to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunt Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> my friend lirance was left unsatisfied by the finale in the realm of stanford pines wanting to kiss eldritch monstrosities, and somehow that turned into this. i guess somewhere along the way it just became an examination of their relationship, and how fucked up bill is??? a.k.a. The Breakup Breakdown. this actually ended up a LOT less shippy than i had been intending... i am deeply sorry for my sins.
> 
>  **content warnings:** SPOILERS for the entire series, up to and including _take back the falls_! also, REALLY unsubtle parallels between billford and abusive stalker boyfriends, plus mentions of alcohol and drugs.
> 
> my soundtracks while i wrote this are [sleep with one eye open](https://8tracks.com/panicbelle/sleep-with-one-eye-open), [HIS AIM IS GETTIN BETTER](https://8tracks.com/oisiflaneur/his-aim-is-gettin-better), and [unholy cataclysm](https://8tracks.com/hamlet-complex/unholy-cataclysm-hymns-for-weirdmageddon). also, my general writing tag is [here](http://oisiflaneur.tumblr.com/tagged/graywrites) for drabbles and news!

Stanford Pines doesn’t see many other people these days. He doesn’t have the time to _socialize_ , for god’s sake. He has work to do. So it’s his lab partner that has to draw attention to it, adjusting his glasses with a small frown. “Hey now, are you feeling better?”

The scientist straightens his spine, anxiety buzzing in his knuckles. “What does that mean?”

“You were acting kinda strange last night.” Fiddleford looks concerned as he pulls his jacket off and hangs it near the door. “Kept laughin’ at me, and I wasn’t really tryin’ to be funny.” 

His blood runs cold, sitting frozen at the worktable. Stanford had never been the one who could think up excuses on the fly ( that job had belonged to someone else, for the longest time ), but he coughs and manages to send his assistant what he hopes is a comforting smile. “Ah, yes. I suppose I haven’t been… Feeling _quite_ myself lately. These late hours have me feeling a little, uh, loopy. Try not to worry about it, would you?” 

Fiddleford frowns, but doesn’t press the matter. The rest of the afternoon is spent making adjustments on the portal, but Stanford has a nagging feeling that there’s less to do than he’d thought there was, yesterday. 

Not to mention, he was _positive_ that he’d left his screwdriver on the bench; not next to the machine itself.

* * *

More and more of his minutes are disappearing.

He doesn’t know where they’re going -- whether it’s some side effect of the portal -- but he knows that something’s off. He keeps blinking and opening his eyes again somewhere else entirely. The lined notebooks stacked in the lab have entire segments erased and written over, in handwriting that isn’t his. His journals are untouched, thankfully, tucked away in the house proper. Apparently, when he sleepwalks, he’s more concerned with the portal than anything else.

Or, maybe it’s just a side effect of the town itself. He’s seen enough strangeness since he arrived, and so _this_ mystery is fairly low priority. Even if it _would_ be nice to know where his time is slipping off to, and why. 

It can wait.

* * *

Or, so he thought.

Stanford realizes _why_ he’s been blacking out for hours at a time in the moment he pulls Fiddleford back through it after the test.

All of the puzzle pieces fall into place in an instant that knocks the breath out of his lungs, and nearly makes him drop his shaking assistant onto the dirt floor of the cavern. He at least has the presence of mind to carry him upstairs, guiding him to an armchair, and throwing a blanket over his shoulders to help with the shock. 

But then all other thoughts drop from his skull, shoved out by the need to confront his _muse_. That need for answers -- everpresent -- that constant ache to satisfy his curiosity, becomes a burning pulse in his ribcage. 

It’s not enough to suspect; he has to _know._

A few sleep aides knock him out cold. Scrambling through the collective unconscious with hackles raised, he comes to a dead stop when he finds a familiar shape and an unfamiliar _rend_ : a scratch in the film of the universe, its other side seething with flames and shadows. With the same kind of twisted shapes that Fiddleford had muttered about as he clutched at his own elbows, curled into the foetal position.

The revelation isn’t much of a revelation, now. But there’s a piece of him that’s still surprised, that still feels betrayed, somehow. “I’ll stop you!” He shouts, fists clenched, before the sound of his own voice jolts him from slumber. When he comes to, he’s panting as though he just ran a marathon, trying to catch his breath despite being horizontal on his cot.

That laugh is still reverberating in his ears.

* * *

His desk is akin to a sacred space; of course, the entire _world_ is his workbench, but when he really needs to concentrate, this is the place he always gravitates back to. 

Except that, now, it feels tainted.

It’s impossible for Stanford to focus when there are three dozen tiny graphite triangles staring at him. They hadn’t looked like they were laughing at him _previously_ , but now, every two dimensional eye seems to be mocking him.

He debates, briefly, whether it would be worth it to take the time to erase them. But the papers that he scribbled them on in the small hours of the morning don’t have anything truly _vital_ on them, do they? And besides. He’s got twelve degrees. If there was anything important on any of them, he’ll just figure it out and jot it down, all over again.

So, he crushes them between his hands, gritting his teeth and bringing all twelve fingers together to crumple them.

When that’s not enough for him, he throws them into the fireplace.

It is, at least, mildly cathartic. More importantly, there’s nothing at his workspace to remind him of Bill.

Not in his _workspace_ , at the very least.

* * *

Until the night he falls asleep on his workbook.

Lifting his glasses to scrub at his eyes, he looks down and feels like his heart is about to stop ( but it won’t, of course it won’t, he’s not even nearly ninety yet, he _still has time_ ). Scrawled in the margins of his notes, the ink still fresh and smudged by his own hand, is a message that he didn’t write.

UNTIL THE END OF TIME SIXER  
△

He rips the page out, discarding his research on a bear with half a dozen heads, and stuffs it into his pocket.

“Time to make some coffee,” he mumbles to himself, striding towards the kitchen. Maybe he’ll even stop by the Dusk 2 Dawn, pick up some energy drinks. Anything to keep him awake and aware, at this point.

After all, he has work to do.

* * *

It takes him nearly the entire day to cover up all of the images.

Stanford stalks from room to room, throwing bedsheets and towels and dishrags over every cycloptic eye staring back at him. His mantlepiece looks like a queue of cartoonish ghosts. 

When he runs out of cloth, he spraypaints over the paintings. There’s a nagging voice at the back of his head ( his own, not the one that’s high pitched and nasal and echoing ) nagging that he should just throw them out, why bother with the risk; but the rest of him is steeled to leave himself reminders. He can’t slip up like this again. _Trust no one._

The prisms aren’t a danger, so he leaves them be, when they aren't in the way. Smashing one did actually make him feel the tiniest bit better, but cleaning up the shards hadn’t been worth it.

* * *

There’s a week or so of blessed peace, and Stanford decides to make use of it. He hides the more dangerous of his journals; the one detailing how to summon Cipher, and the latest, its latter half scribbled in invisible ink, as the secrets he uncovered became more and more deadly. He can’t find it in his heart to destroy them entirely, but squirrelling them away in the forest should suffice to keep their contents safe. 

Besides, he may need to retrieve them soon.

* * *

Some time after that, he wakes up with a stinging pain in his hand, like his skin is on fire.

He reaches for his glasses, plucking them off the nightstand and slotting them onto his ears. With the world in focus once again, he brings his hand up within view, squinting at his palm.

It’s a triangle, bisected by two curved lines, and those in turn bisected by a straight one. A simple enough symbol, composed of perhaps six strokes in all. In the dim light of predawn, it’s a dark, desaturated red.

Blearily, he realizes that it’s dripping -- wet and warm and crimson -- onto his sheets. 

“Of course.” Stanford mumbles to no one in particular ( except that’s not true, is it, now there’s a window for him to peer through and he can’t close it because it’s _in his skin_ ). 

Well, he’s not going to sleep again tonight. Or for a while, if he can help it. Might as well bandage this and wash the bedding.

There’s a flicker of worry at the back of his mind, the passing thought of _I’m getting used to this_ , but he waves it away, and cleans up swiftly and efficiently. Because he _is_ getting used to it. 

But, he signed up for that when he shook the devil’s hand.

* * *

It’s become clear that it’s time for more drastic measures. He knows that having sealed the deal, he can’t necessarily go back on it; not with a creature like Cipher.

But maybe there’s something _else_ that he can do. 

Fiddleford has been scarce the past few weeks, and when he _does_ show up in the lab, he’s been scattered and stammering, his mind clearly disconnected from his body. No, this was something that Stanford is going to have to do himself. And with his skill level, it should certainly be within the realm of possibility.

Still, brain surgery _on oneself_ is _always_ risky. 

He spends the days beforehand preparing, researching, and forging the necessary materials himself. He’s flying blind; none of the old warnings had an answer for keeping the monster out of a single person’s mind. Only out of the world at large. 

But there are some clues, for those who look. And while he’s at it, he might as well take protective measures against some of the other creatures he might encounter around this town. Iron to protect him from anything _fair_ , stamped or carved with as many protective wards as he can fit. After months in Gravity Falls, he’s had time to test which ones work and which are cheap imitations. Thin as paper, he curves it carefully to the measurements of his skull, bending it into shape with a specially designed machine he’d built just for this. He’d had the time to, after all.

It’s not as though he’s been sleeping lately.

And on the convex side, facing outwards for maximum efficacy, a protective ward of his own creation. He’d had to cobble it together from a number of different glyphs with a number of different intended purposes: from protection from demons, to curses of vengeance. They’re arranged in a wheel, engraved shallowly into the metal, circling the same symbol that’s still red and raw on his palm. It’s not exactly the _traditional_ zodiac... But it should suffice.

Stanford doesn’t remember much of the installation, which he blames on the painkillers. He might not have been able to use anaesthetic due to the nature of the procedure, but he’s not reckless. Being in excruciating pain would have made his incisions inaccurate.

His scalp bandaged back together and a handful of sleeping pills in his stomach, he stumbles back to what passes for his bedroom and falls onto what passes for his bed.

Alright, he might possibly be a _little_ reckless. But he also needs to test whether the implant will do its job.

It’s the most restful night he’s had in months.

* * *

With that taken care of, Stanford turns his attention to the portal. Now that his own hands won’t redo the work when he closes his eyes, he can start taking the damned thing apart, and then he can finally focus on something else. If Stanley ever actually answers his postcard, he can pack it all up and skip town: just vanish, as though he was never here.

Granted, he probably never should have been. The town of Gravity Falls is _weird_ , but the last thing he wants while he’s solving mysteries? Is to do more harm than good. He fears that in trying to uncover and catalogue its anomalies, he might have unleashed one that’s a great deal more dangerous.

So, whenever Stanley decides to arrive, he’ll have to turn right back around. The first journal still has some useful notes in it, from when he was new to the valley and just barely scratching the surface. He’ll give it to his twin, send them both far away from here ( somewhere that bill won’t think to look, somewhere _safe_ ), and disappear himself.

It’s not a particularly elegant solution, but it’s the only one available to him at the moment. He just needs Stanley to arrive. Then he can set the rest in motion.

* * *

It feels like his stomach dropped out of him and onto the floor of the cavern, left behind when he was lifted and sucked backwards. The flash of light as he passes through the glowing ring nearly blinds him, and when his vision fades back to normal, his brother is gone. 

And so is the rest of the world.

Everything in his vision is blueish and _twisting_ , but there are bright spots. Doors, almost. Typically circular, always glowing, and never permanent. The landing, the questions, and the eventual return to that ephemeral _middle ground_ ; they start blurring together. There are just too many to keep track of, after a while.

But wherever he ends up, at least it won't’t have Bill. He just has to trust that Stanley will do as instructed and dismantle his work.

* * *

Why on _earth_ did he think that he could trust Stanley to dismantle his work.

Six knuckles still stinging from connecting with his twin’s jaw, he silently vows to finish the job himself. It takes a few nights, working alone in the basement, but he manages to disassemble the machine in a fraction of the time it took to build it. He even manages to contain the quantum anomaly that spills out in the instant when he cracks open the power source; he’s still not sure whether it was the radiation or some supernatural force ( perhaps fiddleford was right about the potential dangers of nuclear power, or perhaps bill did something to it while he was looking in the opposite direction ), but he keeps it locked away. For the time being, at least.

In the end, even all of that isn’t enough.

He has no idea how the bubble containing the rift was cracked, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the end result, the hole ripped open in the sky with the acidic bubbling of burnt film swirling on the other side. What matters is his form going stiff and his mind going blank, only to blink back into existence in a room walled with dark red bricks. 

Stanford knows where he is the moment he hears the first notes plucked from the piano keys ( it reminds him vaguely of _casablanca_ ). Or, at least, who’s to blame for bringing him here. 

But the precautions he took years ago have actually paid off, and his mind is locked to Bill until he says otherwise. He even allows himself a victorious _ha ha!_ about this revelation, _that’s_ how secure he’s feeling.

So he knows he has _some_ manner of leverage, he just has to hold out, and hold his tongue. Even with electricity running through his nervous system, he grinds his teeth and hisses _I hate you, you’re a monster, you’re out of your goddam mind_ , instead of the string of numbers and symbols his captor wants so desperately. 

_That’s right._ All he has to do is keep quiet, and all of this will end here. After all, if he can trap the beast responsible, it’ll all be worth it. Even if he dies, his _former_ friend will be trapped in this singular valley for the rest of eternity, instead of spreading his idea of _fun_ to the rest of humanity. 

Sometimes you just have to know when to cut your losses. Stanford has made peace with that; he had to. And now, it's the only solution.

Until the rescue party shows up, of course.

At first, their arrival only complicates matters ( how is he supposed to keep them safe when they’re right _here_ , next to the biggest threat, the biggest target ), but Dipper’s question sets his mind spinning, cycling through the potentials. And maybe, _just_ maybe, the stars have aligned to give him the keys that he needs to lock Bill out of their plane of existence. There _is_ a certain overlap between those ancient symbols and the people now surrounding him… The star and tree are obvious enough, and how did the early residents know what _glasses_ would be, anyway? There must be _some_ wiggle room.

But, of course, it turns out that wiggle room isn’t what they needed. What would they needed, what would have helped, was more _time_ , but Stanford knows that that’s a finite resource.

When the ritual doesn’t work, his mind crawls to a standstill, while his body feels like somebody slipped their wrist between his ribs to squeeze his heart dry.

This is it. This is _it_ , he’s failed, he couldn’t fix his own goddam mistakes. And now the entire world is going to pay for the fumblings of Stanford Pines. He thinks he might taste bile at the back of his mouth; he knows that there’s no way out.

Until the children run off, of _course_.

He should have expected that. After all, he was twelve once, too.

* * *

There. _There._ He’s trapped, stuck in a mind, pinned down in one place. This is his first -- and likely only -- chance. 

But. Destroying him means destroying his brother.

He knows that this is it. This is when he does what he should have done years ago, when he _ends this._

Or, really? When _Stanley_ ends this.

He’s lost his status as the protagonist of this story, become the sidekick, the one who doesn’t make the noble sacrifice himself and merely assists. He always knew that he’d be the one to take down Bill, but not this way.

Not _this_ way.

It was supposed to be _him_ ; but the same slice of metal between bone and flesh that’s protected him for longer than he can remember is his undoing. It would be pointless to use _him_ as the bait; now that he’s immune to erasure, it would simply give Bill a new set of hands to puppeteer. He might even try to fix the portal… Or something even worse. _No one_ can know what a being made of _impulse itself_ could be planning. He doesn’t really have a choice, here.

With the world riding on his shoulders and three decades of hurt resting in his chest, Stanford Pines pulls the trigger.

* * *

With the plans decided, there are preparations to be made. Stanley spends most of the day with Soos, and most of the evening downstairs. Meanwhile, Stanford is used to travelling light, often inventing what he needs on the go, and so has little to pack. So he takes it upon himself to say goodbye to Gravity Falls; even if it’s only temporary. With the children having returned down south and the others managing the shop, he has little else to do.

And even after three decades, he remembers these woods. With the journals burnt to ash, he might be the last person to know so many of its secrets. 

_One_ of those secrets, however, is new. He’d stumbled across it on one of his hikes, sometime in the last week of august.

Less than half a mile away from the Shack, out a ways from the town, is a clearing with a statue nestled in the loam: at the edge of the treeline, right where it fell when his brother dropped to his knees with blank eyes. It looks to be carved out of granite, crawling with ivy and moss already, as though the forest is trying to cover it up, trying to bury it. Stanford doesn’t brush the foliage away.

But still, it feels only right to say his goodbyes to the one who set it all in motion.

He doesn’t bring flowers, or light a candle ( as though he would _ever_ risk such a fire hazard ), but he does trek out the night before they’re scheduled to leave. Somehow, he ends up timing it so that he’s sitting on a fallen log a few feet away and staring at the statue as the sun crawls westward, before it starts to sink behind the hills.

He’ll never admit it, but Stanford stays perched on that rotting tree trunk for nearly an hour.

With a sigh, he finally hoists his weight upwards and rifles around the inside of his coat, eventually pulling out a flask that Stanley had shoved into his hands over a card game last week; the cheap whiskey sloshes around inside of it.

“You were the worst thing that ever happened to me.” He murmurs as he kneels down, placing the container gently in front of the statue’s base. He doesn’t look back as he exits the clearing.

* * *

They all still make a point of coming back every summer. The Mystery Shack has always had room to spare, and so even with Soos and Melody starting their own family, there are enough beds for everyone.

Kicking caked mud out of the treads of her boots, Wendy leans in the doorway and crosses her arms. Stanley elbows him none too gently, snickering at the way Dipper’s eyes still light up when she approaches. “Hey, dude, you ready for a killer friday? Thompson got some real good stuff, so we’re all heading up to the party pyramid.”

There’s an instant when it feels like his heart is going to stop, but Stanford remembers that he’s only turning eightynine this year. He _still has time._

But the teenaged twins eye each other anxiously, and while Stanford is getting his breath back, Mabel takes a fraction of a step closer to her brother. “Uuuuuh, is that what it sounds like? Because it kinda _sounds like_ the worst week of our lives.”

Wincing visibly, Wendy scratches at the back of her scalp, her posture folding in on itself, radiating embarrassment. “Oh, yeah, you guys wouldn’t know… Some kids started using it as, like… _The_ place to hang out when you’ve got some--” Her eyes flicker to the elder Pines, her grin widening fractionally. “Um. Totally legal drinks, and stuff!” 

They don’t notice that they roll their eyes in tandem, Stanley snorting with amusement. “Yeah, sure, kiddo.” He mumbles, but she’s already forging ahead in her explanation.

“I thought it was pretty… I dunno, tacky? But now it feels kinda, you know. Like we’re taking it back, or something. Spitting in his eye, right?” Shoving her hands into her pockets, she takes another step into the gift shop, tilting her head. “So, you two in?”

Mabel throws back her head and cackles, while Dipper’s laughter is a bit more subdued, until the excitement takes over them and they start chasing each other in circles. Watching them swarm around the redhead is less entertaining now that they’re nearly her height, but not by much. Aging hasn’t done _much_ to sap their hyperactivity.

Skidding to a stop, they peer up at her from the results of their most recent growth spurt -- still a few inches behind Wendy and her lumberjack genetics. “Should we, uh, bring anything?” Dipper hazards, twisting his hands together. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to be rude or something.”

Wendy slaps him between the shoulders, her grin widening. “Nah, just you and your bad selves. I’ll take care of the BYOB.” Stanford smiles to himself and shifts his focus to the magazine in his lap ( cryptids monthly, and not, notably, a serial about cheap jewelery, _stanley_ ), but keeps his ears trained on the younglings. The statue is more a memorial than anything else, now. If the local idiots want to reclaim it, in their own way, who is he to say otherwise?

“Oh, one more thing, though.” Wendy says cheerily as she pulls the door shut behind her. “Don’t touch The Flask, alright? That’s been there for as long as anybody can remember, so it’s, like, respect and junk. Also, it’s probably cursed.”

He’s left too stunned to say anything until after they’re out the door and on their way, but if he hadn’t been? He would have told them that, indeed, it _is_ cursed. Far better to leave it, just in case.

Because _god forbid_ anybody make his mistakes again.


End file.
